Wow. You think it's "absolutely fucking batshit insane to use anything less" than a $8000 computer for full time programming work? (Not counting monitors.) Either you're rolling in money or you're not paying the bills.
I mean, absolutely my work could use that kind of power. My compiles routinely take minutes, and I run tests pretty regularly that are measured in hours, not seconds. I spawn off most of those tests to a Linux machine in the basement so it doesn't slow down my main development machine -- but no doubt it would be very nice if those tests ran 3x faster, and compiles were magically fast.
But I don't think it would be nice enough to justify forgoing our retirement savings every year we needed a new computer...
I mean, absolutely my work could use that kind of power. My compiles routinely take minutes, and I run tests pretty regularly that are measured in hours, not seconds. I spawn off most of those tests to a Linux machine in the basement so it doesn't slow down my main development machine -- but no doubt it would be very nice if those tests ran 3x faster, and compiles were magically fast.
But I don't think it would be nice enough to justify forgoing our retirement savings every year we needed a new computer...